Monthly Archives: February 2015

How To Dye Cotton Blue With Red Cabbage (DIY Iron Mordant, Cold Method)

How To Dye Cotton Fabric Blue With Red Cabbage Tutorial

It’s not easy to dye cotton fabric a washfast and lightfast blue with natural dyes (except with indigo and woad).

After reading that iron in the soil makes hydrangea flowers more blue, I wondered if iron mordant could help to fix the blue color to cotton fabric. And after some experiments with different mordants and modifiers and various natural blue dye materials, I’ve finally found out that red cabbage dye + iron mordant produces a beautiful washfast and lightfast blue! Yay!

Related: 9 FAQs About Dyeing Cotton Blue With Red Cabbage

So in this tutorial I’ll show how to dye cotton and viscose rayon fabric blue with red cabbage and DIY iron mordant. Continue reading How To Dye Cotton Blue With Red Cabbage (DIY Iron Mordant, Cold Method)

18th Century Lappet Cap

18th Century Dress, Fichu And Cap
18th century short gown

This is my 18th century lappet cap. It’s suitable for a mid-18th century working woman.  You can see working women wear lappet caps in these two paintings by Chardin and Hendriks. The lappets can also be pinned up like here.

It’s completely handsewn. And I used unbleached cotton fabric and cotton sewing thread. Linen fabric might’ve been more authentic. But as there were no import bans on cotton in the mid-18th century in the region where I live, I’ve used some cotton scraps I already had in my stash.

Here are photos of the cap and close-up pictures of the lappet cap.